three of 'em in that marriage

 

When I watch The Crown on Netflix, I always learn something.  Lots of insights, and beautiful scenery and set design:  in this one scene, there were framed pictures on a wall, just all lined up--left to right, left to right--almost as if the wall was a printed page.

Very interesting-looking.

The show's pace, at times, is languid.  And it still holds your attention with the sheer power of the story and how well it is done.

     Was recently reading the Quora-thread of an L.A. film guy's answers to people's questions:  several times he invoked the phrase "well-executed" -- it isn't really the idea for a movie that's most important, he says, it's how well executed it is.

     (In which case, the "idea" would not mean anything--it would be the finished product that you would want to look at, to judge.

     The reason people ask film guys about "pitching ideas" is because there are many (many) books about screenwriting and filmmaking that tell us we are supposed to get good at "pitching ideas" in "pitch meetings."  And then if the studio likes your "pitch," they might "green-light" your movie....)

     Anyway--what makes The Crown great is, it's Very Well Executed.

     We already know the story.  British Royal Family--

the abdication

World War II

King George dies, so Elizabeth becomes Queen

Princess Margaret yadda yadda

Diana, yadda yadda...

You don't really watch it to learn the main story line, which you already know.  You watch it to see it unfold.  (And we learn some history along the way, of course.)

Robert Redford has said he encountered some resistance to making All the President's Men because "people already know what happened with Watergate."

     There's an episode of "The Bob Newhart Show" where Bob's watching a war movie late at night and his wife Emily wants him to turn it off and come to bed.  He says he has to see it to the end, and she informs him helpfully and firmly, "The Allies win."

     But see, we don't watch to find out who won; we watch to see it dramatized.  To see the impact of what happened.  To see those pictures all lined up on the Buckingham Palace wall.  To hear Claire Foy, horse-trading with Winston Churchill (played by John Lithgow) and pronouncing the word power, as "paah."

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